Halsted M. Bernard

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Halsted M. Bernard is a writer living in Edinburgh. Her stories and poems have appeared in Innsmouth Magazine, Map Literary, and Bewildering Stories, and she is a member of local spoken-word group Writers' Bloc. For more about Halsted's publications and performances, please see her "Fiction" page.

Disclaimer

spam poem

Time for another spam poem! All lines were taken from my spam folder, and only punctuation and line breaks have been added.

The fall of Saddam Hussein has brought
destruction/Hell to our great country
and everything is so difficult now
and all our opportunities are closing up,
the new Government is trying to frustrate all our businesses.

Life was better when I was younger,
and with this secret potion, life seems young again.

Why aren’t there bullet-proof pants?

You do not know me and neither do I know you.
If you are in not good state and have got no cash to move out,
I know that you will grant my request in good faith.

Regarding the transfer:
Mulberry bush aside, would a monkey really chase a weasel?

Like this:

I apologize for the lack of posts this week. On Monday I had a king-sized headache, and on Tuesday I took photographs instead.

Back to our regularly-scheduled busting of writer’s block! This prose poem is courtesy of my spam folder.

“Too busy to go back to school?” she huffed, dangling the highball glass between thumb and ring-finger. Ice cubes clacked. “I should have seen it coming.” And with that I remembered why I hated her, that slick brow over flat eyes. She went to wakes but never funerals, something about the smell of turned earth, of coffins. I was a replica watch on her wrist, telling time while never knowing how late it was. “You can trick the nature and make a monster of your timid animal.” I fantasized about the heft of the paperweight on her desk. She’ll never be disappointed again.

Like this:

When your relationship is getting ruined we know how to help you.
We will come into your house while you are at the grocery store,
buying whatever the hell cereal you want to buy,
now that there are no other arbitrary preferences in the house,
and we will rearrange everything. We will confuse your weakened heart,
so there is no longer a focus on the ever-present crumbling,
the noise of a tow-truck always idling around the corner.

We know that it is not about words of wisdom. Curse words are more apt
but still not good enough. The words you want to collect and trash
are the words you think you will never say again:
“honey” or “baby” or “sorry”
“I missed you” or “I know I was wrong” or “what do you want me to say”

We know how to help you. We have machines that will help.
If you press your forehead against the cool metal
and look right into
here
we can see into your brain and therefore your heart.
We can see which baggage to zap, which intriguing trait to enhance.
We know things you do not know, can never know, without us.

All it takes is
three easy payments
of your distrust
your despair
your disbelief.

Like this:

In lieu of real content, because I am much too spastic to deliver it, here is a spam poem. My rule is that I use whole lines from spam I’ve received, without any modification save for punctuation. Enjoy.

The lovers were standing together at one of the windows.
Snaps of ice cracking in the hidden air.

“You’ve pitied me, and that’s all that bat fowl good manners exact.”
The prince would never so much as suspect such a rice thunder verse thing in the delight of his first impression.

“How ripe could anything exist without God?”
said Dada, as much amazed butter as though the moon slid careful snake had fallen.

“I will not fight a war I don’t want to win,”
said the prince; he was bewildered, and his brain pin wandered.

“Tell me this wasn’t worth it,”
she said, direction and they disturbed stole through the deserted house.

Here she suddenly paused, afraid of what she had just band said.
She victorious walked on, more hopeless and depressed than she year had deal ever felt.